1. FIELD
This invention relates to cooking ovens, and more specifically, to a novel radiant cooking oven, cooking at higher oven temperatures by long wave radiation, using steam to suppress drying of the product while it is being cooked.
2. 5 DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Cooking time in ovens has been reduced by microwave ovens. In a microwave oven, microwaves cook the foodstuff to a desired temperature by exciting the water molecules in a foodstuff. A separate system then browns the foodstuff. Microwave ovens are complicated and can be dangerous. Microwave ovens can produce taste changes in foodstuffs.
Pressurized cookers, using steam, reduce cooking time. Pressurized cookers ar dangerous. Complex lock mechanisms are needed to ensure that the oven stays locked when pressurized. A pressurized oven incorporating a resistance heating element to brown after steam cooking is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,557.
Convection ovens using steam for processing food, such as shown is U.S. Pat. No. 4,011,805, cook rapidly, as steam condensing on the food transfers a large amount of heat to the food. Steam cookers generate condensate which picks up fat and other cooking debris which must be drained from the oven. The condensate also leaches flavor from the foodstuff and produces a texture to the foodstuff that is not always desirable.
Other devices cook with pressurized fat such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,608,472. Pressurized fat cooking shortens cooking time, but also adds fat to the foodstuff.